Professor Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has recommended political parties meet the deadline for submitting candidate nominations for the 2023 general elections.
When Yakubu visited the venue of the commission’s training for political party executives on Friday, he delivered the advice.
The training focused on how to use the new INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP) in preparation for the general elections in 2023.
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According to a statement from Yakubu’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi, Yakubu visited all six training groups to ensure that the party officials understood what they were being taught.
The INEC chairman encouraged authorities to pay close attention to the respective start dates and deadlines for submitting/uploading candidate nomination forms to the portal for national and state elections.
Yakubu encouraged party officials to read the calendar and schedule of actions for the upcoming general elections.
He stated that online nomination forms EC9A, 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E for presidential and national assembly elections would begin on June 10 and expire on June 17.
The dates for submitting candidacy papers for state elections – governorship and state assembly – remained between July 1 and July 15, according to Yakubu.
He promised the party representatives that INEC would provide them with whatever technical or other assistance they needed while utilizing the portal.
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The training started on Wednesday, June 1, and ended on Saturday, June 4th.
While declaring open the four-day training course in Abuja on Wednesday, INEC National Commissioner, Mrs May Agbamuche-Mbu, stated that ICNP has been in use since the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo States in 2020.
According to Agbamuche-Mbu, the portal was recently modified to meet the increased demands of a broader and more general election nomination procedure.
She claimed that new sections in the Electoral Act of 2022, which allow for many technical advancements, have given INEC the authority to use technology where it was needed.
